What should I upgrade to for $150?

[arcolithe]

My current laptop is:


what are possibilities to upgrade to? I am probably going to work with heavy datasets so "processing power" is key, but of course I'm becoming perpetually addicted to H&H so that multi-tasking thingamajigy needs to do its thingamajig.

[Granger]

In case you're still running from a spinning disk: get a SSD.

[shubla]

Upgrading your processing power costs a lot of money.

If you want some decent cpu, you first have to buy a new motherboard with the right socket. But all the newest motherboards pretty much use DDR4 ram, so you also have to buy completely new ram sticks, and of course, the CPU itself. If you want to buy decent things, those 3 things cost a lot.

[ricky]

Check if you have an extra ram slot, most laptops have two. Look up the ram model you have and but another one of those. Basically the only reasonable investment you can make with 150 bucks without rebuilding your laptop from the ground up.

SSD might be a good buy, but those mostly just affect boot times for programs.

[shubla]

those mostly just affect boot times for programs.

Mostly just?
If he has hdd and he wants a faster computer, ssd is definitely something that he should buy. Writing and reading files to/from the hard disk is used all the time and consumes lot of time if he has old bad hdd compared to cool modern ssd.

[ricky]

Sure, he might have a shitty old HDD, but the best SSD you can find for 150 bucks is going to be in the ~250gb range, which isn't great for today's storage standards.

I think he'd get more value out of 8gb ram, especially if he's looking to run a bunch of programs at once. Probably would cost about half of his budget too

[MagicManICT]

You didn't mention what kind of GPU and processing you're doing. Granger and shubla are right, though. Save a couple hundred more and upgrade the whole system. You're going to get crap processing out of that CPU compared to an i3 or even an AMD processor.

The proper answer is completely dependent on what you're doing. If you need processor intensive processing, a good GPU may be a better upgrade assuming your data cruncher can utilize it (GPUs can push more data in parallel, and faster, than the CPU, but GPU data processing usually revolves around number crunching). An SSD can significantly speed up performance if you're working with a lot of data that is moved in and out of storage, but it's not going to be the best upgrade if you're system is struggling with the paging file as SSD and you're not working with huge data sets (in the GB range) or constantly writing to disk. More RAM may be the best answer as it'll give more system space, more space for the GPU to do its thing, and is a faster pipeline to the processor than trying to read/write through the disk If you're looking to multitask, more RAM is definitely a better answer, and your first priority.

You might be able to afford both extra RAM and a small SSD for memory paging and the OS system disk. Upgrading from 4 to 8 GB RAM can be under $50 for DDR3 (laptop memory is still going to be $70-80 last I looked).

You also don't mention the OS you're using. Given the processor and launch date of it (Q3 '14), I'm going to say you're either running the default Win 8 (maybe upgraded to 10 when it was given free to existing 7/10 users) or Linux. Maybe you downgraded to 7 when you purchased or afterward. In any of the Windows cases, your system is eating up half of the RAM you have, either in background processes, reserved for video, or other such things. This really puts a burden on a modern OS and anything you want to run, and it's going to be a significant improvement to the overall power of your computer if you get RAM first. It's going to nearly triple the amount of RAM available to user processes.

Sure, he might have a shitty old HDD, but the best SSD you can find for 150 bucks is going to be in the ~250gb range, which isn't great for today's storage standards.

I think he'd get more value out of 8gb ram, especially if he's looking to run a bunch of programs at once. Probably would cost about half of his budget too

Newegg has a 500GB SSD for $150. For price comparison, 4GB desktop DDR3 is from $30-70 (depending on brand... don't go with any of those cheap guys as the RAM is shitty and blows up frequently.) There are sub $100 SSDs out there, usually in the 50-128 GB range, more than enough to run the OS and a paging file, but not big enough to really hold data (probably enough for the data processing needed).

[shubla]

Sure, he might have a shitty old HDD, but the best SSD you can find for 150 bucks is going to be in the ~250gb range, which isn't great for today's storage standards.

I think he'd get more value out of 8gb ram, especially if he's looking to run a bunch of programs at once. Probably would cost about half of his budget too

250gb is plenty of space, you can easily fit lot of files in it. You dont have to put all your files on ssd as hdd is cheaper and benefit for storing images/videos on ssd is not that great. Though if he ha laptop he might not be able to fit hdd and ssd. But if he buys ssd he can use it also in the future upgrade that he might buy to his hardware. If he buys a new ram stick, its probably not compatible with the new machine.

There are sub $100 SSDs out there, usually in the 50-128 GB range, more than enough to run the OS and a paging file, but not big enough to really hold data

In Finland I feel that electronics are considerably higher cost than in the US, but even here you can get a decent 256GB SSD for less than 100€. The prices have gone down a lot recently. I think in US you can get the same. He could buy 128 or 256gb ssd and some really cheap ram sticks. If they blow up, at least he gets a good reason to invest in a decent computer!

[Granger]

some really cheap ram sticks

Last time I checked (yesterday) RAM went up, standard DDR4 16GB ECC sticks that I could buy a year ago for 80€ now go for 220€.

[MagicManICT]

If he buys a new ram stick, its probably not compatible with the new machine.

Pro tip for the non-techies reading this. You can upgrade the RAM of most computers you have in your house, but you don't just go buy a part. Take your system to a professional and ask him to find the correct part for you. If your computer was made in the last 10-12 years, there are new parts
out there for it that will fit just fine*. If it's older than that, you might have to crawl around ebay or sites like Craig's List for parts you need.

*When it comes to RAM, it can be finicky. You might need to replace it all to upgrade because the particular type came in the computer from the manufacturer is hard to find, and matching the parts with another brand of RAM might not work correctly. It's better than it was 20 years ago, but still needs more work. RAM just isn't as standardized as some of the things, such as the interface to the video card, or swapping out keyboards.

Last time I checked (yesterday) RAM went up, standard DDR4 16GB ECC sticks that I could buy a year ago for 80€ now go for 220€.

Nice price comparison, but this isn't "new" RAM we're talking about here, but older DDR3, which will likely still have manufacture dates from 2-3 years ago, so price is just going to go down with time.

https://www.google.com/search?q=8GB+DDR3+1600 Price has been about the same the last year to year and a half.

Otherwise, yes, there is a shortage on RAM chips being manufactured. It's been in the tech news the last few months, and new part prices have gone up as a result. (IIRC, something about a shortage in supply for a material in the glue used.)(edit: searched up "supply shortage raises RAM prices... got several articles talking about several issues)